


“it brings out your eyes.”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [56]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22177231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: In the summer after The Case of the Melling Twins, news of the Fallingford Retrial begins to circulate around the country, along with some rather shocking suggestions about the true nature of the relationship between the murderer and the Honourable Albert Wells.Canon EraWritten for the fifty-sixth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Harold Mukherjee/Bertie Wells
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Kudos: 18





	“it brings out your eyes.”

When I clatter down the stairs at Mauldin to breakfast, I feel every pair of eyes drilling into me.

“He- _llo_?” I ask with confusion and panic strung high in my voice. That many eyes have never been focused on me at once since I was testifying at the Trial.

James Monmouth, who is twirling his fork around his hand in the way that he insists upon doing at every meal, finally seems to notice me. It is odd: he was focused on me before, but it is as if he has only just looked at _me_ as opposed to the reason why he was staring at me. “Alfred and I were betting on who would be the last down to breakfast,” he says, pointing his revolving cutlery at me. “I had faith in you because you went to bed so early—” Alfred lets out a snort of laughter that he muffles as a sneeze in his napkin. “—but I lost, and Alfred won.”

Alfred winks at me, and this entire bet idea is automatically true because of that gesture, and how Cheng takes every opportunity to make something from the fact that he knows what the rest of Cambridge does not. Hazel relayed to me after the incident at Christmas just how she knows Alfred Cheng, and her explanation said everything anyone would need to know about Alfred: “He worked his way around the room, taking cake from every plate. I wondered if he was still used to getting everything he wanted.”

I do like him, despite how much he is used to getting the things he wants.

Sitting down in my seat, I take a bite of the breakfast set out for me. “What’s in the news today?”

The tension at breakfast could be cut with a knife, only I am too tired to notice it. Despite my perceptive nature, I fail to notice how it hangs in the air, pulling at every interaction and stretching taunt between the teeth of anybody who opens their mouth, dividing up the syllables of every word as they all dance around an important point.

“Führer Fuckface is filling up half of the paper as usual,” Alfred says, turning an article towards me that’s a few pages into the paper. It shows a man saluting and hundreds of people standing before him, returning the gesture.

“As Harold would say, his foot is so far up his ass that he is blind to the rest of the world,” I say, beating my leg up and down under the table so fast that it shakes the rest of my body.

Freddie Savage snorts. “Mukherjee is a fantastic man,” he says, directing it towards me as I am known as Harold’s friend. We are rarely seen without each other since the deaths of the Melling twins and are referred to as Bertie-and-Harold, a given pair as sure as George-and-Alexander or Hazel-and-Daisy. “When _did_ you two get so close?”

Always happy to talk about Harold, I say, “Oh, we’ve been close for ages!” It’s only when I feel something jerk on my right side where Alfred is sitting, and Freddie yells out in pain a second later that I realise that something is amiss. “Alright, what the fuck is going on?”

“It’s nothing; Freddie was being a nosy gossip about you and Mukherjee,” Alfred says, and we share a moment of panicked eye contact before he mouths at me that it’s alright. I have never been more relieved that Alfred is such a cool customer.

Alfred knows about Harold and me. Not to say that we _told_ him. Instead, he found out in a far less savoury way. Harold and I skipped out on climbing and didn’t think to notify the others in our newly cobbled-together group. Cheng drew the short straw and was forced to make the trip from where we meet at St. John’s to come and fetch me from Mauldin, while Amanda climbed down to Harold’s window to get his attention. He wriggled the window open, screamed, and almost fell to the ground out of shock.

That was an awkward conversation.

When we climbed up to the top of St. John’s, Amanda informed us that she couldn’t find Harold (before seeing him). The look on Alfred’s face and the tone in his voice when he said, “I know,” is something that Harold and I will never _not_ laugh at.

“Anyway, do continue,” James says, gesturing to me with his fork. “You know, about Mukherjee.”

“Oh! Yes, we’ve been close for ages, particularly since Christmas. We bonded over the books that we both love, and then shared many moments of complaining about our idiotically daring siblings. We’ve got closer and closer,” I explain, and then the conversation turns to our plans for the day and I finish my meal in relative silence while they all talk.

“What are you doing today, Bertie?” Freddie asks, jabbing a fork in my direction.

“Oh.” I tap my plate with my fork as I think. “I’m going to go shopping with Harold, getting some gifts for the upcoming birthdays in both of our families. I’m shopping for Hazel, Mrs Doherty, my aunt Saskia, and my… my mother. Harold has upwards of five people to buy for, though I don’t know the exact number.”

“Speaking of,” says a voice from the doorway, and I look up to see Harold leaning against it with my jacket in his hand and a charming smile on his face, “hurry up, we’ve got things to do.”

When I see him, I feel the tension in my body leave all at once. “Alright, Harold,” I tell him, getting to my feet and brushing down my waistcoat and neckerchief. “Did you call George like you’ve been meaning to?”

He nods and, after some small talk with the others about the weather and the delirious after-effect of exams, walks through the doorway with me. Before interacting with me further, he is careful to close the door with a parting salute to the others. When it shuts, he drapes the jacket over my shoulders and kisses the back of my neck. “Morning, Al.”

I lean back into his touch. “Mm. Morning, H.”

“Alright?” He sets a hand on my shoulder, playing with the material and moving his fingers up and down.

I nod. “Everybody is acting so _odd_ today.”

“The summer holidays are almost upon us, my friend; everybody is high off of the end of exams.” He squeezes my shoulder and I can’t help but smile at the use of ‘my friend’, an inside joke between us because of how little that is true. “Anyhow, we have things to do.”

* * *

Together, Harold and I walk to the bookstore. Despite the fact that his angular features are basking in the sunlight of the beautiful mid-summer, and that his every other word is a compliment of my countenance or my appearance, I cannot concentrate on him.

As we stroll down the street, two Cambridge aesthetes in neckerchiefs with hair outgrown from how our haircuts should be, I feel every pair of eyes on me. Everybody is looking at me and every glance wracks and jarring nervousness down my spine. It feels as if they can see directly through my clothes, as if they can see the places that Harold has placed his hands on me, as if I am labelled as a freak who has been betrayed by one lover and is walking beside another.

“Harold, what the  _ fuck _ is going on?”

“I have genuinely no idea, Al,” he replies, and when I manage to force myself to look up at him, his eyes are wide and honest. However, I can barely look him in the eye for how horrid I feel because of all the eyes on me. Even looking him in the eye feels wrong, as if everybody looking at us on the street can analyse every word that has ever been heavily implied in an exchange of long moments of eye contact.

The two of us step to the side, letting students and shoppers alike flow past us. He grabs me by my sleeve and looks me the eye. “Love, you have to believe me. I have  _ no  _ knowledge of what is going on.”

“Don’t touch my arm.”

At that gesture, all I can think of is the Fallingford trial. It’s already in my mind, the eyes that focused on me there, the tears in Stephen’s eyes as I testified.

The touch on my arm pitches me over the edge. In what feels like free fall, I flash back to Fallingford, to a single moment amid the chaos when I allowed myself to sink into the arms of the boy I believed was my salvation and safety.

I can not describe how horrifying it feels to be thrown back in time and open your eyes to a scene across the country that you have lived a thousand times before, as if I have been submerged in the hardest of cold waters and am resurfacing inside Fallingford with a gasp.

It is not as if I am recalling a vivid memory in horrifying detail, but like I am there and reliving a moment that I would desperately like to treasure: I am standing inside my bedroom at the window, admiring the rain as it lashes against the window. Then, as now, I thought of its assault on Fallingford as beautiful. Then Stephen touches my arm to alert me to his presence behind me. I jump and he laughs, calls me ‘love’, and asks me what’s going on inside my head. He kisses the back of my neck and wraps his arms around my waist, and tells me that I am safe. He will never let the murderer hurt me.

When I break the surface tension of the ocean I’m drowning in, I’m on the ground and staring up at the blue sky, blinking until the dark shape obscuring the clouds shifts into blotchy colours that I can make out as Harold’s face.

“Bertie?” he says in a soft voice so impossibly full of love that I cannot stop myself from relaxing upon hearing his voice, and feeling his hand holding mine in a way that could be interpreted as him checking if I’m alright. Then I blink and the face staring down at me is thin and pale, marred with freckles and decorated with a shock of red hair, and I retch at the feeling of Stephen Bampton holding my hand. 

“Are you alright?” somebody else says, peering over at me with a frown.

“Yes.” I sit up, pressing my hands onto my knees and digging my nails into the skin through my trousers in order to ground myself. “The exams really took it out of me. I’ve been feeling faint all morning.”

With a knowledgeable nod, the student that I know to be in his third year says, “Ah, of course. The first year of exams is the most difficult; you never realise the exhaustion until it hits you.”

With a laugh, I assure the student that I’m alright and look back to Harold. I blink, and when I open my eyes again, he is still the man looking back at me. He offers out his hands and his eyes are enormously concerned as he hauls me to my feet. “Alright, Bertie?”

We stare into each other’s eyes, and I nod. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing  _ to me _ .”

Before I can acknowledge what is possibly the sweetest sentiment I have ever heard in my life, he jerks me along the street to the bookstore.

“I think that I want to get the new editions of Sherlock Holmes for George,” he tells me as we approach the bookstore. “He’s been raving out the covers every time I call him.”

Outside the newsagents, I stop him with a hand on his shoulder. “Just one moment, Alfred asked me to buy him dome gum.”

We slip inside together and Harold’s breath hitches. I glance to my left and see why. 

There is no one at the counter but there is a newspaper with a glaring headline stacked up in piles in front of it that reads in enormous block letters: FALLINGFORD RETRIAL.

_ Fuck,  _ I think as I pick up the paper from the stand, worrying the tip of my tongue over my chapped lips. My eyes flit down the copious columns taken up by the front-page article, my heart clenching awfully when my eyes flit up to the top of a column and take notice of the three photos at the top: a photo of our family from years ago, myself in the centre with my sister in my arms, a photo of Fallingford in all its awful glory as it bathes in watery sunlight and memories, and the mugshot of a thin, freckled face that I know every inch of better than I should. 

_ Bampton may be forced to disclose details about what is suspected to be an unnatural relationship with The Honourable Albert Wells to ensure his sentence being shortened. _

Vomit rises in my throat and my knees go weak as the world swims.  _ Which would be better?  _ I wonder.  _ Throwing up or passing out? _

“Bertie!” Harold yells, and his arms are awkwardly around me to support me before I realise that I have lost my balance.

I’ve blacked out twice in two minutes and that cannot be good for me mentally or physically.

Harold manages to right me before I can apologise to him for falling backwards into his arms. “Steady on, Al.”

“Right.” I straighten out the paper and hold it before my face. Now the shock has occurred, I am surprisingly calm as I stare at the words I have feared seeing since last Easter. “This is why everybody is staring and why the others were hellishly awkward this morning?”

With a hand on my shoulder, he nods at me and leans his head against my own. “Are you alright?”

I peer at the newspaper and say, “Well, I guess that it’s time to lie my way out of this.”

“That makes you no better than a murderer,” he teases me.

“I haven’t killed anyone… yet.” I turn to glare at him to make it clear that he is my intended victim, and he bursts out laughing, and the sound is what I imagine that rays of sun would taste of on my tongue.

* * *

We continue onto the bookstore and Harold directs my attention to the man behind the counter who is peering at me.

“Hello!” he calls over to the man. “Say, where do you keep your Sherlock Holmes books?”

With a series of hand gestures, the man directs him to the back of the store. “Wonderful, thank you!” he says, throwing back over his shoulder as he goes, “I’ll let you know if I see something for Hazel!”

“Thank you, H, you’re a star!”

I walk over to the counter and greet the man behind it, striking up a conversation about the best books for purchase for an unconventional teenager with a love of old-fashioned novels.

“Who is this girl you’re shopping for? A girlfriend?” he asks.

I shake my head. “My sister’s best friend. She’s become rather close to our family so a birthday gift is only right.”

“You’re the…” He pauses, gestures up and down my body. “The young man from the newspaper, are you not?”

I force out a bark of laughter. “Oh, that nonsense! See here, that’s all utter bullshit and you have it from the mouth of the man himself.”

“Really?” He sounds sceptical, ready to kick me out at a moment’s notice.

“Yes! There’s one police commissioner — damn Officer Root — who was intent on building that story in his report. The… Bampton and I had a rather close friendship for two schoolboys, confiding in each other about our families and home lives as well as the girls we fancied. When Officer Root heard about this from my family members, he was determined to morph it into an odd sort of love story!” The joking tones that I cough up are believable, and Harold raises his eyebrows approvingly from the other side of the shop.

Laughing, the man behind the counter shakes my hand. “Good lord, man, you’ve certainly had a tough time of it with this ridiculousness!”

“I have indeed!” I echo, leaning against the counter. “I just hope that my sister is able to dispel this utter nonsense when it reaches her school.”

“I wish you luck,” he says with a warm smile. “Do you mind if I inform others of this? What a dreadfully unfortunate situation to be in!”

I clamp my lips together to hold in a gasp.  _ Perfect _ . “Oh no, not at all, sir. Do feel free! I need as many people aware of the nature of this nonsense as possible, as you can imagine.”

Harold calls out. “Bertie! I’ve found the perfect gift for your Hazel.”

I nod at the man and walk over to see him brandishing a biography. Taking it from his hands, I look to see that it's about a young woman from China of all places, Hong Kong hundreds of years ago.

“A young Hong Kong woman in the workforce, sounds like someone that we know,” he says with laughter in his tones.

I roll my eyes and try not to show how pleased I am as I pay for it.

* * *

I repeat this lie until I am blue in the face to anybody who looks at me sideways, even managing to project my annoyance at the stares into the conversations, turning it into frustration about the thought of homosexuality.

After taking lunch in a decent café, Harold and I walk back to Mauldin. “Say, can I use the telephone to call George?” he asks.

“Go ahead.”

I follow him up the stairs and slump in one of the chairs next to the phone, almost falling asleep with my head against the wall as he talks.

The operator puts him through and I hear George’s voice say, “Hello?”

“Bubba! How are you?”

“Don’t call me that, I’m not five anymore.”

“You’re still five to me, bub. How are you?” Harold asks, a fond smile on his face.

George’s voice bubbles down the line in joyous schoolboy tones. “Wizard! Alex and I smashed the end of year exams, and he’s in our dormitory to get a head start on packing for when we go away with the girls.” There’s a pause. “Did you see the newspapers? Is Bertie alright?”

Harold looks down at me and I feel his eyes on me, hear his soft sigh as he thinks that I’m asleep on my hand. He reaches out and runs a hand through my hair. “He’s alright. Marvellously lying his way out of it. He’s shattered, though.”

“Give him our well-wishes, H. After Fallingford, he doesn’t deserve that happening to him.”

George Mukherjee is softer and more human when talking to his brother.

“I will. Have fun on holiday with the girls, won’t you?” His voice is wrought with the same worry that mine often is when speaking to my sister.

“I promise that no one will die. H. I love you, but the Master says I’ve got to go.”

“Alright. I love you too, bubba.”

Harold nudges my arm. “Al?”

“Yeah?”

“Come on, didn’t you want to call Daisy?”

The operator connects us and Deepdean crackles to life on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

“Squashy?” I ask, and I hear a muffled squeal.

“Hazel, it’s Bertie!” she whispers, before saying, “Squinty!”

“How’s Deepdean?” Plesentaries are important when talking to women, the headmaster of Eton reminds me in the back of my head.

With a huff, my ever-charming sister says, “Nevermind that shit! Are you alright? The newspapers are hideous.”

“I’m well aware. Don’t worry, I’m lying my way out of it.”

Daisy makes an indignant noise. “Are you sure you got it covered?”

“What are you going to do if I haven’t? Send in the army?” I ask with a scoff.

“Do you have it covered?!” she yells, and I hold the phone away from my ear.

“Yes, I do!” After a pause, I say, “There’s something you’re dying to tell me.”

There’s a long pause. “I’m gay.”

“You’re…”

In case I’m in any doubt, my darling Daisy reiterates. “I like girls.”

“It’s alright. I love you,” I tell her, the words forcing from my mouth before I can process the news. It’s so perfect, isn’t it? Two wonderful fucked-up screw-up children who love each other half to death. Daisy is all I have left and I cannot lose her. “I love you so much, Daisy.” I choke on my words. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. No, Hazel, I am  _ not  _ crying—”

I laugh and wipe at my eyes. “You are, Squashy. I know the tone of your voice.”

“I hate you,” she spits out. “You horror.”

“I love you too, Squashy.”

“Matron says we have to go!” Hazel yells. “Hello, Bertie!”

The squabble at the other end as they put the phone down and argue with their Matron makes me laugh all over again.

When I set down the phone, I notice Harold staring at me.

“Why do you always have to stare when I’m crying?” I ask, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands.

“It brings out your eyes,” he tells me, looking left and right before kissing my cheek, catching a tear on his lip my accident. 

“You’re so weird, H.”

“I love you too,” he replies, and takes off down the stairs.

* * *

That night, we go climbing. Alfred, Freddie Savage, James Monomouth, and Amanda, the other components in our climbing group, find the entire situation absolutely hilarious. Here and there, James and Freddie quote the article, while Amanda teases Bertie about the Trial. Alfred, despite his whopping laughter at first, tries to diffuse the teasing.

“Come on,” he says as he hitches himself up onto the ledge we’re all on and unties the rope. “Bit mean, isn’t it? Drop it.”

“Come on, Cheng! Where’s your sense of humour?” Freddie asks as he throws his next line.

“I prefer to make fun of appearances,” he says. “Have you seen the teeth of that new French professor?”

Harold turns to me and grins as the others chortle with laughter.

“Oh Lord, yes!” Amanda says, gesturing wildly. “Have you seen how reckless he is on a bike? He almost ran me over!”

“Hah!” Freddie cries, tucking up his top lip in an impression of the new professor and miming swerving a bike.

Then there’s the sound of crumbling brick and someone jolts down a few feet. “FUCK!” yells Harold after a horrid moment of silence. “I’m alright! Bertie, help me up!”

Jumping into action, I haul him from the awkward dip in the tail of the mermaid carving that he fell on top of, and gasp at his completely skinned ankle. “Shit, H!” I say, nudging him to show it to the others.

James’ eyes grow wide. “Lord, Mukherjee, you’re bleeding all over Senate House!”

Through gritted teeth, he says, “I realise that.”

“Here.” I take off my neckerchief and wrap it around his skinned ankle, and he hisses and swears at the sting of the pain.

“Help him back to St. John’s,” Amanda orders. “We can carry on climbing.”

“Course, Manda,” I reply, winking at her as they disappear up onto the next ledge.

For a moment, Harold and I simply sit down on the ledge. “Alright?”

“It hurts.”

“Want to move?”

“Absolutely not.”

He takes my hand and leans his head on my shoulder, and I feel him sigh more than I hear the exhale. “You were marvellous today.”

“Thank you for catching me.”

“I’ll always catch you.”

He turns his head to find me staring at him, and he grins. “Kiss me?”

I lean in and our lips lock together, and his kiss tastes like what I imagine that rays of sun would taste like on my tongue.


End file.
